vry

Below is something I’d like to preserve because it is kept on an old Mail & Guardian web server that is still switched on for some reason, but may disappear: http://server.mg.co.za/mg/letters/index.html. It was a response to Richard Calland apparently writing (way back in 2002) that he is “quietly celebrating” every Israeli and American civilian casualty.

“Calland is no anti-Semite
Richard Calland is plainly not an anti-Semite: he is too cultured, and too conscious, to be guilty of such vulgarity. What Mr Calland himself may allow though is that he is prone to a number of other crude and destructive intellectual impulses.
In common with all political columnists, he exaggerates, wildly. Nuance, subtlety, qualification and complexity are not the stuff of which sharp, short commentaries are made — and so we get Yasser Arafat cast as a measured Madiba and Ariel Sharon as a madcap mass-murderer. This is unhelpful, to put it mildly, as well as irresponsible and inflammatory.
In common with intellectuals everywhere, Mr Calland suffers a fair dose of self-righteousness and sanctimoniousness. It has been said, pertinently, that moral indignation is the opiate of the literate left — and those who make a living out of public pontification are especially susceptible to addiction.
Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner goes the true radical creed. Perhaps Mr Calland could write a column on the subject. — Glen Heneck”

South Africa’s Sunday Times has a Mampara of the week - feature, where ‘Hogarth’ castigates the public fool of the week.
In one such piece (June 2005), Hogarth wrote:

“A LITTLE bird reminded Hogarth of an incident of that took place in 1994.

A certain gentleman by the name of Robert Gabriel Mugabe was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England and was thus accepted into the inner sanctum of the British aristocracy.

Mugabe accepted the honour with glee.

Now the next time you hear Sir Bob rant and rave about his foes being stooges of the British and agents of colonialism …”

This piece appeared at:
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=ST6A126105

I am repeating it here, because it disappeared from their web site - the same as many of their other articles. The Sunday Times online don’t seem to get the very first principle of the Web - hyperlinks. Yes, there are people out there who would have liked to keep a link to a story like this. For example, they might like to use it when they write something about how Sir Mugabe has the mindset of the colonised - first he accepts British honours like an obedient prefect, then later rants against Britain like a naughty child when his country’s economy collapses due to his own actions.

Khathu Mamaila wrote about the Western media’s utter lack of interest in the trial of Paul Bisingimana for a massacre in a church during the Rwandan Genocide. He argues that international community is as unconcerned about the current slaughter in Darfur as it was disinterested in the Rwandan Genocide.

He writes:
“Nobody owes Africans a favour. People will always act in their best interest.”
and:
“This means that African leaders and organisations should make peace with the reality that the future of their continent is in their hands. If they mess up, they will stew in their mess.
This is why the resolution of the Darfur conflict should essentially be an African initiative. So should be the resolution of the Congo issue, where an estimated three million people are reported to have died due to the effects of the war.
Independence from colonialism cannot be reduced to simply changing the colours of the national flag. It cannot only be a new national anthem. It has to be a process of Africans leading themselves not only out of conflict but towards prosperity.
The African media should help people not only to remember what happened but also assist them to to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Rwanda is enough proof that Africans should be under no illusion that other people will do that which they themselves ought to do for themselves”

I wish every South African journalist could read these words. In a country and continent where some still seemingly live with the mindset of the colonised, it is for journalists to emphasize the reality. Too many look with gratitude or hope to the likes of Bob Geldoff and Gordon Brown.
When a newspaper writes that this or that plan from outside might not have sufficient resources, or criticise it on some other non-fundamental level, they are still being uncritical of these people and their agendas. They fail to see that these ’saviours’ are playing for a home audience. And that as long as Africans are the subjects of other people’s plans, they are not yet in command of their own destinies.